bedbugs
lborkowski | May 17, 2011A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Charles Ornstein at ProPublica: Cardiac Society Draws Bulk of Funding from Stent Makers
Deborah Blum at Speakeasy Science: A Chemical (Battle) Cry
Tara C. Smith at Aetiology: Ebola in Uganda: current and past outbreaks
Tim Lougheed in Environmental Health Perspectives: Phosphorus Paradox: Scarcity and Overabundance of a Key Nutrient
Maryn McKenna at Superbug: Drug-resistant bacteria in bedbugs
tsmith | May 12, 2011An ahead-of-print paper in Emerging Infectious Diseases is generating some buzz in the mainstream media. While the findings are interesting, I'm honestly not sure how they got published, being so preliminary.
Like many areas, Vancouver, British Columbia has seen a jump in the prevalence of bedbugs. After finding impoverished patients infested with the bugs, researchers decided to collect some and test them for pathogens--specifically, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE). So, they tested 5 bugs from 3 patients. That's it--it doesn't…
gregladen | January 19, 2011Bedbugs (Insects of the Cimicidae family, commonly Cimex lectularius) are annoying, might carry diseases (though this is unclear, so probably nothing importat1, and are apparently becoming more common in the US. Interestingly, there has been very little study done of their genetics. A new study just out in PLoS ONE looks at the bedbug genome in an effort to better understand pesticide resistance in these pesky critters.
The current working hypothesis is that pesticide resistance in bedbugs results from point mutations in certain genes, though there may be another explanation. Bedbugs…
awild | April 21, 2010...just for you.
Cimex lectularius, the common Bed Bug
More photos from this series are posted here.
photo details:
Canon EOS 50D camera
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens
ISO 100, f/13, 1/250sec
awild | September 17, 2009
Cimex lectularius - the common bedbug
Bed bugs are back. The resurgence of these blood-feeding pests is perhaps the biggest entomological story of the past decade. Take a look, for instance, at the Google search volume for "bed bugs" over the past few years:
Google Trends shows an increase in bed bug interest relative to other pests, 2004-2009
Why am I telling you all of this?
I've just posted a new online bed bug photo gallery. I was fortunate to get my hands on a vial of live bed bugs recently, and it turns out that the little guys are excellent entomological models. Cute, cuddly…
tlambert | February 6, 2009Bug girl writes about a new paper on insecticide resistance of bedbugs. It turns out the resistance mechanism (kdr) means that they are resistant to DDT and pyrethroids. She concludes:
DDT will be utterly useless against bed bugs, so people should stop asking for it.
We're going to need a lot more research on ways to kill bedbugs other than just poisoning them with the usual pesticide suspects.
In cities where there are active bed bug populations, insecticide choice for resistance management will be very important in urban entomology.
Bedbugs are not going to go away, and you should…